


Five Times Bucky Discovered He was Human, and One Time He Kept His Humanity

by seikaitsukimizu



Series: Strike Team Delta AU [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Awesome Phil Coulson, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes-centric, Fanboy Phil Coulson, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hydra (Marvel), Minor Character Death, POV Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 16:45:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4968562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seikaitsukimizu/pseuds/seikaitsukimizu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the Winter Soldier suffered a cognitive re-calibration years ago, and it was all because of Hawkeye? What if this led the Winter Soldier on a path of realization that he wasn't a weapon? What if learning the truth was more painful than not-remembering? </p>
<p>AKA</p>
<p>The years before Clint brought the Winter Soldier into SHIELD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Bucky Discovered He was Human, and One Time He Kept His Humanity

The first time the Winter Soldier learned he was more than just a weapon, it was in Paris, France.

His partner, one of the Black Widows, is petite, with fiery red hair, pale skin like the snow in Russia, and at all times has four knives hidden in a skintight black gown that should hide nothing. She’s their most promising Widow, and for this mission, the Soldier is acting as her chaperone, both for the handlers and for their mark.

It’s infiltrating a diplomatic ball. Natalia--the Widow--smiles regally and convinces everyone she’s secretly royalty. He watches her like a hawk, but drinks enough for everyone to assume he’ll be lackluster in his duties. It works, and before long the attache to Britain has escorted her out of the room to talk.

He gives her five minutes.

She’s back in three.

Tomorrow morning, the man will wake up believing he drunk too much and had a wonderful time with a mysterious princess. He won’t ever realize the confidential documents Natalia has taken pictures of will be in the hands of the Motherland soon.

When they’re back at the safehouse, he reports in, and as a reward for a job well done, they tell him he can use the Widow any way he sees fit.

He kisses her once, then smirks and says, “Well done, Eliza. You put old Wendy to shame.”

She blinks at him. “Wendy?” Even though they’re safe, there’s no accent in her voice.

There is, he’s startled to realize, an unfamiliar accent in his own voice. “Wendy Hiller. Lady won an Oscar for the role of Eliza Doolittle. _Pygmalion._ ” She stares at him and he pulls back. “The movie. I saw it with this dame right before I-”

He stops, mouth hanging open.

Natalia tilts her head. “Soldier?”

“I...I don’t know,” he responds in Russian. “I don’t...understand.” He’s never seen that movie. He’s never even heard of it before.

But he _remembers._ The stunningly regal flower girl, the bookish professor, reading the Oscar nomination and award for a Wendy Hiller.

He remembers a kiss that was dismal, and grabbing a man’s hand as it pulled back to punch someone.

“Natalia,” he steps away from her, “I think there’s something wrong with me.” He’s still speaking in the mother tongue, but now it’s a desperate whisper.

Automatically, she reassures him with, “They will know what to do.”

(They do know what to do. They strap him to a device and his head turns white with agony, and then he’s asleep again.

It’s one of the first thing he remembers after he’s free.

He definitely has opinions about this Audrey Hepburn person and what she did with the role.)

* * *

 

The second time the Soldier realizes he’s not just a weapon, it’s just past the turn of the century and he’s hiding from his handlers. A month ago a sniper--most likely Hawkeye, based on the weaponry--tried to assassinate Alexander Pierce, and it resulted in the man’s death.

At the Asset’s hands.

The soldiers, Pierce’s men, came to retrieve him. To discipline him.

He’d killed his primary handler.

Men stood before him. Men were there commanding him. Men were grabbing him.

Alexander Pierce was dead.

They hit him. They took his weapon. They yelled in his face.

He was _free!_

He didn’t know where the thought came from, didn’t even know what the word _meant._ But he knew what he had to do.

He killed the men.

He killed the pilot.

He flew away and hid in the most populated city he could find: New York.

Missives are still sent out, orders hidden in newspaper columns and odd radio jingles. They all say the same thing: _Retrieve the Asset. The Asset must return to base. You must obey._

He knows he has to obey.

He finds a place to squat in Brooklyn instead.

It’s nice. Beat up, with holes all throughout the first story, but the third floor walls are still mostly intact, and the rats fear him, leaving him in peace. There’s another squatter, named Sandy. She smiles and talks of peace and love and takes these strange white pills a man in a large coat gives her in exchange for sex.

_That ain’t right._ It’s the first thought unrelated to his survival or stealth since escaping a month ago. He blinks, then sits down and reviews the thought. Then he thinks back further, his first thought. _The_ thought.

He was free.

It wasn’t instinctive. His reactions, yes. His going to ground can even be explained away by his training. But that thought, that _word_ , that definitely isn’t anything he’s programmed to consider. He isn’t even sure he’s allowed to know what that word means.

But he thought it, and he ran.

Now, he’s thinking the way that man handles Sandy isn’t right. She’s a woman, a potential liability, but otherwise inconsequential. He shouldn’t have any thoughts about the man, or her, or their relationship.

He does, though. And he has a basis, somewhere in his mind, of how a man _should_ treat a lady.

Is it just programming?

No. He wasn’t programmed to care about others. Targets, liabilities, irrelevants. Nothing more. Even under cover, he was made to act, but still not to care.

There’s something there, something _more_ to him.

What is it? _Who_ is it?

He won’t get any answers here. Only his handlers would know.

He isn’t going to return to them.

But he is going to _find_ them, and do what he does best.

(Before he leaves, he picks up the man supplying Sandy with the pills with his metal hand, strips him of his coat and all the cash he has, then throws him into a dumpster. He gives the trophies to Sandy, who looks scared and dazed.

“You deserve better,” he says gruffly.

She blinks absently. “Are you my spirit guide?”

Unable to think of how to respond  to that, he just coughs, “Yes,” and runs away.)

* * *

 

A year later, he’s discovered things that means he’s _definitely_ more than just an Asset. He has to eat, and he _likes_ certain foods over others. It’s a novel concept, that he can have _preferences._ Hell, even that he has a _choice_ in how he wants to support his body. He’s not reliant on nutritional supplements and intravenous solutions.

It’s amazing.

And Hydra _robbed_ him of it. For _years._ Because it wasn’t necessary programming for his mission objectives.

It makes him grit his teeth and want to kill for no reason other than revenge.

That’s another novel concept. Anger. Frustration. _Desire._

He still has trouble processing it. He finds killing Hydra agents helps.

Yet a part of him regrets it.

Not that Hydra’s losing men. That he’s _ending a life._

Another emotion. Regret. Over his primary function.

No, Hydra’s definition of his primary function. Now his primary function is…

Is…

_Blond hair. Starving feeling. Violence. Affection._

He shakes his head because he doesn’t know. Doesn’t even recognize the images, or the relation between his feelings and the image of a blond head.

Why the thought of _primary function_ even brings these thoughts to the forefront of his mind.

He’s left New York, gone back to Europe and is following an invisible path. Sometimes directly to Hydra bases. Other times, though, other times he finds himself walking and thinking, _no, it was different_ or _hated that fucking place, nearly froze my balls off_ or _this place makes me lonely._

He wants to know _why._

He _needs_ to know why.

What finally stops him is a marker. He’s in Poland, some barely-there village with a large lump of stone resting by the roadside. Just above his head someone has chiseled in words. Recalling what languages he’s been programmed with, he roughly interprets, ‘Those that fell’ and ‘those that sacrificed’ and ‘remember.’

Remember.

When he blinks, his metal fist has punched a hole beneath the memorial. Cracks run through it, and when he removes his hand slowly, he’s half afraid the entire thing will collapse in on itself.

It doesn’t, though it shifts just enough he twitches.

He’s about to leave when a twinge of...of...regret...no, not regret. _Guilt_. Yes. Guilt nags at him. Makes him hunch his shoulders and feel...feel worse than killing Hydra agents.

He takes what money he has, a few thousand groszy, leaves it in the fist-sized hole and hurries away.

He’s no longer just the Soldier. He’s no longer just a weapon. He’s something...something _more._

It’s so difficult to process, though, that sometimes he’s not sure it’s worth it.

(He does a giant loop that ends up with him going through Switzerland six months later. He has no idea _why_ he’s tense the entire train ride through, but it makes him irritable, puts him on edge. When he finds the next Hydra base and the man who experimented on his _brain_ he doesn’t even care that another assassin is there. He shoots and shoots, and then he’s on the ground and killing with his hand.

He’s being extra _vicious_ and he doesn’t know _why_ , only that it feels _good._

Something is being released. Something about this place...

When he leaves, it’s as if a great weight is lifted off his shoulders. He knows, no matter what else happens, _this_ is his primary function now.

He’ll strangle every head of Hydra until finally, finally he feels satisfied.)

* * *

 

The next time he feels...feels _human_ , it’s the simplest thing. Things are getting hot. He’s killed dozens of Hydra members, both covert operatives and overt ones. He’s starting to be recognized. His mask and cybernetic arm he can’t do anything about, but his hair...his long hair is not in fashion, and it’s drawing attention.

Soon it’ll draw the wrong _kind_ of attention.

So he goes to get a haircut.

It sounds easy, but it’s not. He has to _relax_ while people wash his hair and then put blades next to his head. It reminds him of the water torture he was trained to resist--and trained to use. The scissors remind him of Hydra, of the way they would put sharp, metal things and insert them into his _brain._

It takes three sleepless nights and a ton of alcohol that doesn’t actually affect him, but he does, finally, go to one place with a woman who has to be in her late sixties still cutting hair. She has a softness about her, a kindness and gentleness that even Hydra, at its most subversive, can’t imitate. He goes and he explains he has...issues...trauma…

Her smile is polite. “You just come back from Iraq, sweetie?”

He does a quick recap of recent news. Iraq. War. Terrorists. “Y-yeah.” He throws in the stutter, knows it makes him look weaker, maybe shocked. “A while. Just couldn’t...didn’t leave home for a bit. Too much…” He waves absently.

“Oh, hon.” She telegraphs that she’s going to touch his flesh arm, and waits until he nods. “My husband, god rest his soul, was like that when he got back from the Gulf. I know just how to take care of you. Come this way.”

She starts chatting then, empty words that form a sort of white noise that actually does help him relax slightly. He’s still tense when the water touches his head, but he doesn’t flinch or lash out. With the scissors she holds them up and uses the mirror to show exactly where it’s going, waiting for him to nod slightly before she brings it too close to his scalp.

She’s halfway done when something she says triggers a spark in his mind and he jerks away.

She freezes immediately, pulling the blades away from him. “It’s alright, dear. You’re in Boston-”

“That name,” he interrupts. “You...you said a name.”

“My husband?” She blinks slowly. “Stephen.” Her face crumples. “I’m sorry. Did...did you lose a friend with that name?”

“I…” Stephen...Stephen… No, it’s not triggering anything. Maybe it wasn’t that after all. “Yes,” he lies shakily.

“I’m sorry.” She hesitates with her hand out, another comforting gesture. He nods slowly. She rests it against his shoulder and he carefully sits back in the chair. She goes through the entire ritual again, making sure he’s okay with where the scissors are going, watching his reactions in the mirror.

He gets through the rest of the haircut trying to figure out what, out of all the white noise, shook him out of his reverie. He invests himself deeply enough that he doesn’t notice she’s finished until she says, “How does that look, dearie?”

When he looks in the mirror, a smirk slides into place unconsciously. It fits so naturally with the short, almost crew-cut hair and clean-shaven look. He just needs a uniform to complete the look.

_What_ look he doesn’t know. “Perfect,” he says, and her smile is like a balm over the earlier shock.

He.... _likes_ the way he looks. He’s never looked like this before. Even undercover they rarely did anything but let him shave. But _he_ chose this look. In order to duck people hunting him, sure, but it’s different and...and part of it recognizes it as _him._

Him from before Hydra, probably.

It’s terrific, and he leaves a hundred dollar tip, because she just made his day.

(He gives up the look as time passes. Too hard to maintain while on the run, too attractive to be unnoticed. He thinks about it, though. Considers going back to it every once in awhile.

When he finally has the chance to, he decides he can’t. That may have been who he was once, but not now. He’s got too much blood on his hands and too many holes in his mind. Trying to salvage that, he comes to realize, is futile.

But for that one day, that one moment, he glimpsed what he _might_ have been. If only he hadn’t been turned into the Fist of Hydra.)

* * *

 

It seems like such a long time, over half a decade since he was freed, before he discovers his name. Hydra--his handlers, his former masters, his _enslavers_ \--never bothered to keep his name. The ‘American,’ the ‘Winter Soldier,’ the ‘Asset.’ Those titles were enough, why confuse their weapon with something proper, something with _humanity._

He hates them.

He hates what they made him into.

He hates what they made him _do._

He hates his life.

So he decides to end it. In Budapest, because why the hell not? It’s centered between a lot of government agencies he’s pissed off by killing their Hydra members, and it’s got a large enough underworld that the Hydra cells in hiding will hear of his arrival and end it quick enough.

A weapon turned against them, after all, is a liability, and should be put down. They did that with the Widows.

Well, all but one, supposedly…

It’s all going to plan, when Hawkeye shows up. He doesn’t say much. His argument isn’t even _compelling._ Yet that hand stretched out, not in anger or in fear, but in friendship…

Something sparks, something primal and so familiar that he spends hours in his head trying to chase it down before he realizes Hawkeye is still there, still waiting, still giving him a chance.

So he takes it.

Then they have to all but burn Budapest to the ground because he set up a _really_ good death trap. Somehow, both he and Hawkeye make it without being shot, without getting stabbed and, surprisingly enough, without being on anyone’s most wanted list.

Phil Coulson of SHIELD isn’t impressed.

Phil Coulson of SHIELD also won’t stop _staring at him_.

It’s almost unnerving. Hawkeye is dropped off somewhere on the east coast, and then there’s a rushed phone call and the pilot is taking them even farther away. When they disembark, the Soldier discovers they’re in an isolated facility, with enough food and supplies stockpiled to last a year.

The pilot, a beautiful woman that reminds him frighteningly of Natalia--whom he _remembers_ , after they _made_ him forget--leaves then, and it’s just him and Phil Coulson of SHIELD. They enter the facility, some sort of isolation and security protocol is activated, and then the man sits on a couch and _stares_ some more.

Unsure of what to do, the Soldier stands at attention and waits.

And waits.

...and waits.

Finally, Phil Coulson of SHIELD says, “I’d like to debrief you.”

“Understood.”

“I’d also like to know what Hawkeye promised to bring you in.”

“Revenge,” he says absently. Then, after a moment’s thought, “Redemption.”

“And you want both.”

It’s not a question. “I want,” he starts, then stops.

The Asset doesn’t have ‘wants.’

He’s not the Asset, he reminds himself. He’s a person.

Phil Coulson of SHIELD doesn’t look angry, doesn’t look judgemental, he just looks...patient. He doesn’t prompt, he doesn’t pester, he just sits silently, hands on his knees, staring at him.

What’s with the staring?

“I want to know why you can’t take your eyes off me,” he says, unable to stop himself.

That earns him a twitch at the corners of the man’s mouth. “You’re a surprise. I didn’t know what I expected Hawkeye to do when he went off comms.”

“My apparent joining of your organization is a surprise?”

“Who you are is.”

“The Winter Soldier,” he says flatly. “The man you were hunting.”

“Well, of course that, but I mean,” he points then, “you, specifically.” Then the stare turns sharp, calculating, and the Soldier is reminded that this is a high ranking member of SHIELD. “You don’t...what’s your name?”

“I’m the Asset.”

“Name,” he repeats.

“The American.”

“That’s a title. A code name.” Phil Coulson of SHIELD narrows his eyes. “Who are you?”

For the first time in...ever--that he can remember--the Soldier feels himself sweat under the gaze of a handler. No, _not_ a handler. An _enemy--_ an ally? “I…”

The agent shoots to his feet and barks, “Name! Rank! Serial number!”

From somewhere--he has no idea where--he barks, “3-2-5-5-7-0-3-8, sir!”

Phil Coulson of SHIELD looks satisfied.

The Soldier just gapes, and then he falls back, landing his ass on a table. That wasn’t a number Hydra ever assigned him. They always used codenames. He has no idea where that number came from, where that programming is from.

Which means it isn’t...it _can’t_ be from Hydra.

So this...this was programming from _before_ he was the Asset.

There’s a hand on his non-robotic shoulder and he looks up. Whatever his face is showing, it makes Phil Coulson of SHIELD give him a soft, sympathetic look. “Your name,” he says kindly, “is James Buchanan Barnes. Rank, sergeant. Your friends,” he smiles, “called you Bucky.”

“James,” he tries first, then “Bucky.” He weighs them both carefully on his tongue, in his mind. After a minute, he feels his face is wet and reaches up.

Crying. He’s crying.

He’s never cried before.

“Welcome home, sergeant,” Phil Coulson of SHIELD says softly.

(Later, he’ll silently climb out of bed--too soft, too many blankets--and stand over Phil Coulson of SHIELD as the man sleeps on the couch.

Less than a day, and SHIELD has delivered on Hawkeye’s promise. Not even debriefing him first, or making him sign on, or extracting any promises. No, this agent offered the information freely, because...because it was obvious he wanted, he _needed_ to know. He’s never met that sort of person before, and he ends up standing there all night just turning it over in his head.

When Phil Coulson of SHIELD wakes, the man doesn’t startle, but he does frown. “What are you doing?”

With a little shrug, he answers, “I was watching you sleep.”)

* * *

 

The first time he realizes he’ll never be _just_ the Asset again happens two years after his induction to SHIELD. He’s on a mission in Germany retrieving some data from, ironically enough, a Neo-Nazi group. His handler is a friend of Phil’s, a man named John Garrett. This handler is no-nonsense, and doesn’t have Phil’s sense of humor nor admiration for Captain America.

He kind of misses it, actually. Something he will never, _ever_ tell Clint because the man would never stop teasing him.

He completes the mission with a second man, named Grant Ward, acting as his sniper in case the Soldier is spotted. It’s an insult, frankly. He may be Bucky, but he still has all the training from being the Winter Soldier. He doesn’t _get_ caught.

Besides, Ward’s a weasel. He reminds Bucky of the men that used to corner his friend--blond, tiny, firecracker _Steve_ ; he _remembers Steve_ \--in dark alleys and pound on for standing up for women, for respect, for disrespecting the uniform.

Steve was an _idiot._ And Bucky doesn’t think he’ll ever finish mourning him.

When he’d told Clint that Ward would be his second, the man snorted and gossiped that Agent Hill refers to him as the porcupine. And then he’d shown a picture of the drawing she’d made on his file. Fortunately, his training allows him to keep a straight face, otherwise he’d be laughing in Ward’s face so, so much.

Garrett’s voice over the radio is a grunt of, _“Good work. Return to base.”_

Base is a warehouse. Not the worst safehouse he’s ever been in, but Phil at least tries to get them into a dirty hotel or run-down apartment. Something that gives them a chance to clean up before getting the hell out of dodge.

Ward is taking a different route back from Bucky, but responds over the secure line, _“Yes sir. You know what’s best.”_

It’s nothing, could be that Ward is just that much of a suck-up, but then Garrett keeps talking. _“That’s right. Take a deep breath. Calm your mind.”_ The man’s voice is still gruff and official, but Bucky’s heart is racing because his mind is resonating with those words. He _knows those words._ He’s mouthing the next sentence as Garrett says, _“What is best is to comply.”_

_“Compliance will be rewarded,”_ Ward adds in. _“Are you ready to comply?”_

Bucky slows down his retreat, slows and stops and licks his lips. Those key phrases, the tugging in his brain…  They’re Hydra. They’re Hydra and Garrett is a _fucking level 8 agent!_ And Bucky had missed it. Bucky had missed that Garrett, one of Phil’s friends, is one of the bastards that took him, that _tortured_ him. That turned him into nothing more than a _weapon!_

His cybernetic hand clenches, and he braces himself. He waits for the programming to take over. Hydra’s programming. Programming that will erase these last two years, hell, the last near-decade of freedom. He shuts his eyes and grits his teeth and wills himself to fight, _fight_ , because he _does not want to go back!_

Nothing happens.

Literally, nothing. He blinks as his mind remains his own, his _will_ remains his own.

Their programming does _nothing._

He knows it, he recognizes it, but he’s still _free._

He grins. It’s not a nice grin. It’s, in fact, the grin that usually has Clint backing away placatingly and Phil bracing for sudden additional paperwork.

_“Are you ready to comply,”_ Garrett repeats, and this time, Bucky knows it’s aimed at him.

He lets a little of his old, dead tone leak through the radio. “The Asset is ready to comply.”

_“Return to current safehouse for recalibration and storage.”_ The man’s voice is smug, arrogant. Bucky even hears Ward chuckle darkly.

“Understood,” he answers, and stops to buy five gallons of gasoline.

(Fury is, well, furious. Both at setting an entire block in Germany on fire, and that Hydra is still in SHIELD. He’s also got that narrowed-eye look that means he’s plotting, and Bucky just knows it’ll involve him somehow. Since he’s dismissed though, he ducks away and goes to Phil’s office.

Clint’s there, all traces of his usual humor gone. He eyes Bucky up and down, looking for any injuries. “You good, buddy?”

He can’t help the way the dark, vicious smile comes to his face. “ _Good._ Exorcised some demons.”

“Next time, do it with less property damage,” Phil says dryly, but Bucky can see through his stoic mask. He’s just as concerned as Clint, and probably as furious as the Director that one of his friends turned out to be a traitor.

Later, after Clint’s locked the door and Phil’s pulled out the 20-year-old scotch he ‘liberated’ from Stark, Bucky admits quietly, “They had the chair.” Clint nudges him gently in support. “But their words did nothing. They had no _power_ over me. I was...I’m _free.”_

“We’ll make sure you stay that way,” Phil says it like a vow, and Clint nods immediately.

Bucky’s smile at the words is warm. And this time, his friends smile back.)


End file.
